Monograph

Climate Change and the Moral Agent: Individual Duties in an Interdependent World Oxford University Press, 2013

Many of us take it for granted that we ought to cooperate to tackle climate change. But where does this requirement come from, and what does it mean for us as individuals trying to do the right thing? Climate change does very great harm to our fellow humans and to the non-human world, but no one causes it on their own and it isn’t the result of intentionally collective action. In the face of the current failure of institutions to face up to the problem, is there anything we can do as individuals that will leave us able to live with ourselves?

My book responds to these challenges. A moral case is made for collective action on climate change, by appeal to moralized collective self-interest, collective ability to aid, and an expanded understanding of collective responsibility for harm. It is further argued that collective action on climate change is something we owe to ourselves, to save us from marring choices. Pushing the boundaries, the book explores collective climate duties to non-humans and asks what our primary individuals duties are in the absence of effective collective action. (Should we be mimicking what we would have to do under a fair collective scheme, or promoting collective action, or aiding victims directly?)